“You will tell me if it’s too much.” It’s not a request.
I nod, my fingers tangling in the sheets.
Then he lines us up and rolls his hips, pushing in and in and in, until he’s so deep that I can feel him everywhere. I moan at the stretch, the fit, the utter perfection of him, muffling the sound in my pillow.
He grabs the pillow and throws it to the floor. “I want them to hear,” he says, withdrawing slowly, stroking every inch of me, then slamming home again. “Gods, you’re fucking perfect.”
I cry out. He feels so damned good. “There are hundreds of people in this palace of a house.” How I can string together more than two words is beyond me.
He leans over my back, then drags his teeth across the shell of my ear. “And I want them all to know you’re mine.”
I don’t argue with his logic. I can’t. Not when he slides almost all the way out of me, then snaps his hips, driving out every thought. He sets a hard, deep rhythm, turning me into pure, burning pleasure.
This is exactly what I needed—for him to take me, to consume me, to breathe life into me.
His fingers dig into my hips, pulling me into every driving thrust, and there’s no way to rock back, to gain leverage, to force him to quicken his pace. I can only accept what he gives, surrender completely, and simply feel.
He winds me up, building the coiling pressure within me tighter and tighter, my cries filling the room along with his growls and whispered words of praise.
It just gets better, hotter, sweeter, until there is no world outside him, no existence beyond us. All that matters is the next thrust.
“Xaden.” His name on my lips is a plea as the tension spirals so tight it borders on pain, power rising within me, white-hot and uncontrollable.
His hand rises along my stomach to my sternum, then lifts me upright so my back meets his chest. I turn my head, tangling my fingers in his hair, and he fuses our mouths, kissing me breathless while he drives into me again and again and again, his movements growing less and less controlled.
He’s close.
“You’re alive.” His voice wraps around my mind as his fingers dip between my thighs and slide over my clit. “Alive and strong and mine.”
Gods, he knew what I needed without me even telling him. My thighs lock, then tremble. It’s too much and exactly enough.
“And you’re mine.” I gasp for breath, my pulse racing as he strokes me right over the edge.
And I fall. I absolutely shatter. Light flashes and is quickly snuffed by cooling darkness as wave after wave of bliss rolls over me.
He locks his arms around me, holding me close as he shudders, tumbling into his own release.
We stay like that, wrapped around each other in every way possible, our breaths ragged as we come back to reality.
A reality in which I wasn’t remotely quiet.
My cheeks flush even hotter.
“You want me to sleep in here with you?” I ask once I can form words.
“Every night.” He kisses me softly.
“You might not be able to ward it yet, but you’d better sound shield this room today.” I lift my brows so he knows I mean it.
His mouth curves into a heart-stopping smile. “Already done.”
I roll my eyes. “Of course it is.”
By the time we emerge from Xaden’s room an hour later, there are cadets everywhere.
“This is… ” Words fail as we descend the right side of the sweeping double staircase to the foyer.
“Noisier than the last time we were here,” Xaden supplies, glancing over the crowd. Some riders stand in groups while others sit along the walls.
Every single one of them wears an expression that’s a variation of exactly how I’m feeling right now—what the hell did we do? Aretia wasn’t ready for this, and yet I brought them anyway.
Xaden may have risked the revolution by coming for me, but I smacked a giant target on it.
“Can we even fit all these riders here?” I ask Xaden as we pick our way through the mayhem.
“There are a hundred barracks rooms between the top three floors,” he tells me. “And that doesn’t account for the family quarters on the second. The question is if they’re all serviceable. Not everything has been repaired and rebuilt.”
“Violet!” Rhiannon waves from where she stands with our squad, waiting in front of the archway that leads into the great hall. Her gaze sweeps over me. “You look better.”
“I feel better,” I assure her, noticing that Imogen isn’t with them. “What’s going on?”
“I was hoping you’d know.” She glances over our squad, then leans in, lowering her voice. “They took a quick roll last night, put us in our rooms, and fed us breakfast this morning, but that was an hour ago. Now we’re just… ” She gestures to the foyer. “Waiting.”
